Advertising

And correctly slated, in my opinion, because it’s so ostentatious.
Yes – there’s a super-premium market and they do live this life.
But, it’s displayed with such a lack of wit or self-awareness that it becomes laughable.

We are all trying to find ideas. And good ones are usually a combination of the media, the message (if there is a rational message at all), the values/tone/attitude and the creative delivery… in other words (maybe simpler put), you can’t divorce the message from the execution anymore. As such, there is no single person to point the finger at. You have to accept that the whole game becomes a team thingy – with shared responsibility. Shared success. And shared failure.

I think that’s why I still respect Mother for refusing to identify individuals on work – and ascribing credit on everything to ‘Mother.’ Although maybe they’re just protecting themselves from people being hired out of there!

And it’s why the new Gorilla ad from Fallon is such an interesting piece of work. You can’t do things like this when you’re obsessing about the planning piece – the insight, the USP, the proposition, etc… – you have to be thinking about what produces results – the answer to a business issue/opportunity/need/desire/ or whatever you want to call that.

This is as true for TV ads as it is for digital – it’s about finding ideas, not about the media they appear in. Just make sure they’re generous ideas, per Richard’s piece!

It has nothing to do with Cadburys Dairy Milk, but you can bet more people will discuss this ad (and Dairy Milk) than anything else for quite some time… I won’t say too much more because you have to watch it yourself, but I will say that I started off thinking “Is it Emperors New Clothes?” and ended up thinking “Genius!” You can’t do this ad nauseam, but this is a perfect example of entertaining people rather than using some half-hearted insight to drive communication.

I stumbled across this on AdCritic – which is now Creativity Online – while trying to find something else and getting stymied by the non-functioning search function (oh how we get used to things working online!)… Anyway, that’s all irrelevant. Now, ignoring the monkey visual that cuts in for a second on good old George Bush’ face (and any political storm that could create), don’t you just love this?

And why… Because it’s compelling viewing. Without any ‘customer insight.’
It’s not an ad so much as a piece of branded entertainment. Wrapped up in product.
Probably didn’t take a lot of planning – in the old sense of that term (customer mining for insights and strategic focus) – but must have taken a lot of thinking from the whole team to rationalise why a piece of content like that could put a brand on the map. And that’s still planning in my books. Because we should be doing planning as part of the whole process of creating communication and not as some sort of foreplay to creating effective work.

It’s part of a bigger thought that’s brewing in my mind, but felt worth adding in. Even if it’s a bit half thought through!

“Fear The Gay Chicken! What the hell is that?” you think to yourself – and off you go, clicking on the link… You wait a while… listening to a weird “clucking” sort of noise. I won’t describe it. Then you click on the chicken – and land on the “Fear The Gay Chicken (FTGC)” Site – proclaiming itself to be “The Official” site.

It is just a self-perpetuating promotion for a T-Shirt seller on CafePress.
And, as such, it’s smart as you like.
But, not that great.

Tell you what, though – bet it sells more T-Shirts than my ‘got nothing but ambition’ CafePress site – which is a great idea still waiting to happen about 6 months later.

Sorry to be a killjoy about this one, but I’m not sure.
Beautifully shot. Stirring soundtrack. BUT…

It might just be me, but I felt like it glamourised shooting – rather than putting me off, it reminded me of the Jackal scene (original movie) and other cool shooting clips – wouldn’t it be great to actually shoot a watermelon?!?

So, like it, but not sure it will be effective. Worth watching, though… Click here or:

PS: Apologies if this has been posted all over already – just back from holidays and I saw this before reading blogs, etc… It even managed to jolt me from my holiday mood and get me thinking about things again.

So there I was, flicking through the latest crop of ads from Brand Republic… I don’t know if you need a password to view them, but you might. Except the last one, which is neatly up on YouTube already.

New Orange Gold Spot featuring Val Kilmer and I’m licking my lips with anticipation.
But, sadly, left feeling a little disappointed – I love these ads. But this one ain’t good enough… maybe there’s just too much product message? Did the original ones just talk about a simpler message – well, not really, I don’t think. And the gags about Top Gun are great. Does it need more of a shift – more change? Dunno – something’s just not hitting me like they used to.

So, next up was the Smirnoff ad – big production number and holds attention. Pretty darn good, I thought.

Then I clicked on the BK/Simpsons ad – expecting a wan tie-in ad – you know, the sort of thing that leaves you thinking “ho hum” – and how wrong I was. It’s a beauty – a real gem – enjoy it…

Of course, the BK ad was also easy to find and watch on YouTube – the others aren’t – shame that we don’t all post ads there – free media: why wouldn’t you? (I take it that’s not a digital deadly sin??!).